People selling art they don't own yet 1 1

[Comic Art Factory]

People selling art they don't own yet

Just came across two people calling themselves collectors, and trying to sell art they don't even own yet. As the art they're selling is located in italian or french galleries, they think they can put it for sale in France (as many dont check the italian galleries) or on the US market (as many US collectors don"t check the french galleries) .

And if someone is interested, then they buy it from the source and complete the transaction. I remember one other fellow who used to put pages on hold for a few weeks, when trying to sell it overseas. After a few cancelled sales, he was blacklisted by many professional sellers. 

Does this happen a lot ? Have you ever come across people acting this way in the past or recently ? 

[DJRome]

A little over a year ago, I saw a very nice cover being offered on CAF. I contacted the guy, who told me that he was selling it for a friend. A very very private friend. So he didn't really have it yet. I took that as a red flag.

 It was a modern piece, so I asked around and found the artist's rep. When he heard my story, he was incensed. Turns out the art was still in the possession of the original artist! The fellow who originally posted the piece, was obviously shopping around a piece he didn't own & his whole "friend" story was bunk. The rep did have the piece available for sale, so I bought it from him for a cheaper price than the first guy offered.

If someone is selling art that they don't have in hand, you should be skeptical & ask questions. Hope that helps, Fred.

 

[Panelfan1]

Wow.  I really thought the art market (collectors anyway) were less likely to play these kind of games. 

Thanks for the heads up!

[delekkerste]

He who sells what isn't his'n

Must buy it first or go to prison

 

[suspense39]

Yes, this has happened to me, with Anthony. I won one of his pieces on eBay, I paid right away and three weeks later nothing, so I emailed. I was then told he was still waiting for the consignor to send him the art, two weeks later still nothing so we cancelled the deal.

[Pete Marino]

1 minute ago, suspense39 said:

Yes, this has happened to me, with Anthony. I won one of his pieces on eBay, I paid right away and three weeks later nothing, so I emailed. I was then told he was still waiting for the consignor to send him the art, two weeks later still nothing so we cancelled the deal.

It's a little different with an established dealer.

They take consignments all the time.

When it's a random collector saying they own something that they have to sell, and they don't own it.  there's a much different set of rules.

[zhamlau]

You see it a lot in the world of autographs. OP was doing a private sit down signing with Harrison Ford. They were charging between 600-900 per item, for nearly double they will have it inscribed (To Mark for example) for you.  They had the offer up for a day before they sold out. In that day it was open I saw someone do a BIN auction on Ebay where they would "offer" the buyer one of the autographs and the option to get it personalized for I think 30% over OP's store cost. Clever, but shady/sad as heck.

[suspense39]

52 minutes ago, Pete Marino said:

It's a little different with an established dealer.

They take consignments all the time.

When it's a random collector saying they own something that they have to sell, and they don't own it.  there's a much different set of rules.

you're probably right but why would he put it on ebay vs. his own site

[batman_fan]

Wasn't there a guy on the boards that bought and sold the same book and had the guy he bought it from ship it directly to the guy he sold it to. 

[buyatari]

On May 24, 2017 at 11:56 AM, zhamlau said:

You see it a lot in the world of autographs. OP was doing a private sit down signing with Harrison Ford. They were charging between 600-900 per item, for nearly double they will have it inscribed 

Wait what!,!

No one would pay that would they?

I thought autograph collecting went out with animation cels in the 90s. 

[Lethal_Collector]

Isn't *spoon* like this why I can't get a real Campbell OA because he thinks I'll just hock it on fleabay? 

 

Jerome

[Hekla]

The practice is called dropshipping and happens a lot thru Amazon. A middleman or 'retailer' will list a product (after finding a good deal, of course) and have the product shipped directly from source to customer. Legal as far as Amazon is concerned, but they encourage relationships between retailer and source. Buyers who notice the shipping invoice/return label and do a little research usually aren't happy about it, obviously.

 

Becoming more mainstream as a business model (example website below providing 'how-to set up your dropship business'), so make sure you do research before impulse buys.

http://www.ecommercefuel.com/what-is-drop-shipping/

[zhamlau]

13 hours ago, buyatari said:

On 5/24/2017 at 11:56 AM, zhamlau said:

You see it a lot in the world of autographs. OP was doing a private sit down signing with Harrison Ford. They were charging between 600-900 per item, for nearly double they will have it inscribed 

Wait what!,!

No one would pay that would they?

I thought autograph collecting went out with animation cels in the 90s. 

Nope, infact it got massive. There is an autograph show every weekend somewhere. Disney does these things called "Celebrations" like big convention just for star wars with a heavy focus on star wars autograph collecting. Tens of thousands of people show up every year, pay millions and millions, for live autographs from the celebrities.

What would really shock you is how much athletes charge for their autographs. There are private signings and events for autographs in every state every day. Local players, national famous guys, etc.  If you ever want to have your mind blown type in "CGC signature Series" and just sort by highest per. Or just look up PSA/DNA or STEINER Autograph and look at highest.

[Pythagore333]

It happened to me several time. A pseudo-collector asked for a price on CAF, then we reached a deal...two weeks after, still expecting a payment and the guy explained you that he had changed his mind...in-between, your page was presented with a 20% margin to many collectors...

Another story: a "collector" tried to buy a page I own (on CAF) , the negociation failed (we did not reach an agreement on the price).6 months after, another collector on CAF has a page I really wanted and turned the statut to "For trade", and, lucky for me,asked for exactly the artist and the kind of page i owned.  I sent the scans of my page, and the collector answered immediatly that another guy had shown him exactly the same page : the first guy that had tried to buy my page 6 months before, that eventually came back to me to know if i still owned the page...